LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
§pp ©opjjriglrf !ftu._ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



AT THE LORD'S TABLE. 



AT 



THE LORD'S TABLE 



THOUGHTS ON 
COMMUNION AND FELLOWSHIP 



BY 



HOWARD CROSBY. 



"\I/*N261894 ; 



NEW YORK 



•797*- 



i 



ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 

182 Fifth Avenue 



1894 







2^5 



Copyright, 1894, 
By Anson D. F. Randolph and Company 

(INCORPORATED). 



Km'&ersttg $ress; 
John Wilson & Son, Cambridge, U S. A. 



NO TE. 

It was customary for Dr, Crosby at the 
Communion Table to speak briefly on some 
theme suitable for meditation during tlie 
service. 

A few of these utterances taken down at 
the time are now published, with the hope 
that they may prove as helpful to others as 
they were to his own people. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. The Real Presence 7 

II. Communion Seasons 10 

III. The Nature of the Supper ... 13 

IV. The Supper a Festival, not a Fast 17 
V. The Supper a Love-Feast . . . . 21 

VI. The Supper a Pledge of Glory . 25 

VII. Communion . . » 29 

VIII. Fellowship 31 

IX. Misusing the Supper 33 

X. Christ's Divinity in the Supper . 36 

XI. Christ's Humanity in the Supper 40 
XII. The Domestic Element in the 

Supper 43 

XIII. The Individual Element in the 

Supper 46 

XIV. The Supper a Means against 

Heart-hardening 51 

XV. The Supper a Means of gaining 

Assurance 55 



VI 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 



Contents, 

PAGE 

The Supper a Strength and Joy 59 
What God says in the Supper 63 
God's Love for the Believer 66 
God's Delight in the Believer 70 
The Beauty of the Lord . . 73 
Psalm XXIII. and the Supper j$ 
The Two Covenants . . . . 79 
The Supper and departed Saints 82 
Remembering Jesus' Words . 85 
The Memory-Time . . . . . 90 
Consciousness of God's Pres- 
ence 92 

Being Troubled 96 

How Jesus is Glorified ..'... 99 
Our Sinfulness and Christ's 

Love 101 

Christian Boldness .... 104 

Identification with Christ . 108 

Abiding in Christ 112 

The Indwelling of Christ in 

the Soul 116 

The Everlasting Consolations 118 

The Believer's Sonship ... 120 

The Believer's Saintship . . 122 

The Believer's Glory. . . . 126 



AT THE LORD'S TABLE. 



THE REAL PRESENCE. 

T 7"ERY early in the Church's history, 
misunderstandings arose — naturally 
arose as do all misunderstandings — with 
reference to its two ordinances, Baptism 
and the Lord's Supper. Baptism became 
synonymous with regeneration, and regen- 
eration became, not the cleansing power of 
the Holy Spirit in the will and affections, 
but the external application of water with 
a sort of magical formula. The Lord's 
Supper suffered a like change. The Lord 
Jesus was declared to be actually present 
in the bread and the wine placed upon his 
table, not present symbolically, not pres- 



8 The Real Presence. 

ent spiritually, but present physically, the 
bread and the wine becoming his flesh 
and his blood. These teachings have 
been the source of unmeasured harm. 
They deal only with the external rites, and 
the attention is soon altogether fixed upon 
externals. Spirituality then departs, and 
a flood-gate is opened for formalism to 
enter. 

And yet prolific as they have been of 
error, there is in these teachings a great 
deal of truth. Add the element of faith, 
the faith of the recipient, and they become 
nearly all truth. Baptism, then, is not 
the cause but the sign of a true regenera- 
tion. There is no power in the water, or 
in the officiating minister, or in the church. 
The whole power (on the human side) is in 
the faith of the recipient, or in the faith 
of the parent through the family covenant, 
which faith is acknowledged by God. And 
so with the Lord's Supper. Christ Jesus 
sits to-day at this table, not perceptibly to 
the senses and yet actually, not by a poetic 



The Real Presence. 9 

fancy or by an act of the imagination, but 
truly. There is a real presence ; Christ is 
here with power to instruct the mind and 
to strengthen the heart. Faith perceives 
the presence and feels the power. 

Now I take it that we shall derive com- 
fort and peace from this holy ordinance 
just as we recognize this presence of our 
Lord. If we see him and hear his words 
— and faith will enable us to do this — we 
shall go away invigorated and refreshed; 
if we do not see and hear him, the Supper 
is without meaning to us, is merely a 
form. 



II. 

COMMUNION SEASONS. 

HPHERE can be no doubt that in the 
time immediately following the insti- 
tution of the Supper, its observance was a 
feature of every holy convocation of the 
church. The brethren came together daily, 
and never separated without partaking of 
the emblems of their Lord's death in their 
behalf. But even in the apostolic days we 
find an increase in the length of the period 
between the celebrations of the Supper, 
and that these occurred not daily as at 
first, but on the first day of every week. 
I think it is a misfortune that different 
parts of the Church ever departed from this 
apostolic custom and lengthened the inter- 
vals between the communion seasons, mak- 
ing them in some cases a year apart, or six 
months, or three months, or two months. 



Communion Seasons. 1 1 

One of the evils growing out of this cus- 
tom is a sort of suggestion of intermittent 
piety, an unacknowledged notion that 
Christians may be quite worldly for most 
of the time, and then gather themselves up 
into a pious frame of mind at the approach 
of the communion season, only to fall into 
worldliness again as soon as the season has 
passed. A more frequent observance of 
the Supper would, I think, correct this, 
and by bringing our Lord's death con- 
stantly before us, be a quickener of our 
faith and a powerful agent to keep us closer 
to his side and thus farther away from the 
world and farther away from temptation. 

God's wish for us His children is that 
we should be full of joy and peace, and 
He has made ample provision for this. A 
verse in Psalm XCII. tells us how: " Those 
that be planted in the house of the Lord 
shall flourish in the courts of our God." 
"To flourish" is to be happy, and happi- 
ness is a subjective condition that does not 
at all depend upon earthly circumstances of 



12 Communion Seasons. 

any kind. But those who thus flourish are 
such as are planted in the house of the 
Lord, that is, make it their abiding-place. 
Just here is the difference between Chris- 
tians. Many Christians (to keep the fig- 
ure) seem to be planted in boxes which are 
now and then rolled into the Lord's house 
and then rolled out again. Such Chris- 
tians cannot flourish, cannot be happy. 
Happiness is found in the house of the 
Lord, and belongs to those who are planted 
there. 

Is not this a good time to think over our 
own case, to see whether we make our 
religious life, our true life, our life hid with 
Christ in God, our main thought, subordi- 
nating all else to it ? Only in this way 
can we be planted in the house of the 
Lord, and it is the only place where we 
can become holy and happy, filled with joy 
and comfort and peace. 



III. 

THE NATURE OF THE SUPPER. 

T^HROUGH the ages of the Church's 
life the Lord's Supper has received 
various names, and some of them have been 
sad misnomers. The " sacrament " is one 
of these. " Sacrament " in its Latin form 
had two meanings. The first was that of 
a vow or an oath taken by a soldier to his 
commander; and this notion has fastened 
itself upon a large part of the Church, caus- 
ing great terror and distress where neither 
terror nor distress should exist. We do 
not come here to-day to take vows of 
obedience upon ourselves ; we do not come 
to bind ourselves by oaths of service. We 
are too weak for either vows or oaths ; we 
should break them all if we made them. 
God vows, not we, — God vows to give us 
eternal salvation and glory, and binds Him- 



14 The Nature of the Supper. 

self by an oath that He will bring this 
to pass. We do nothing but receive his 
promise. 

The other and later meaning of " sacra- 
ment " is "mystery," and this grew out of 
its use in the Church. It is just as false 
as the other. There is nothing specially 
mysterious in the holy Supper; there is no 
more mystery in it than there is in prayer, 
or in faith, or in our daily life. We are 
only children, and to children everything 
has somewhat of mystery. The Supper is 
simple enough for a child to understand; 
it is coming to the Lord's table to remem- 
ber him, that is, "to see Jesus bearing my 
punishment, broken for me, dying for me." 
All there is of mystery is in the great 
principles which lie behind the facts here 
memorialized. 

In the Bible this holy ordinance is called 
a " supper," and we sit at a supper with our 
friends when the day's work is over. It 
is a time for rest and refreshment, for lov- 
ing intercourse and mutual confidence. 



The Nature of the Supper. 15 

And it is called, or w call it, using one 
of the words found in the account of the 
institution of the Supper, the " Eucha- 
rist." " Eucharist" means " thanksgiv- 
ing ; " and this is a most appropriate 
name, — for where should our thanksgiving 
be more fervent, where should our grati- 
tude be more ardent, than here where we 
see before us the emblems of the suffer- 
ings of our Lord for us? 

Then, while this holy ordinance is a 
supper to which the Lord invites us, to 
which we come in obedience to him, that 
we may have our gratitude enkindled and 
our love strengthened by our remembrance 
of his work for us, there is also in it the 
element of a divine union, a union with God 
established by Jesus. No heart sits at the 
table in child-like faith without receiving 
the peace and joy and strength that must 
come from such a union. And so the sup- 
per becomes to us a seal and pledge as well 
as a memorial rite. I sit at the table and 
partake of the bread and the wine, and my 



1 6 The Nature of the Stepper. 

faith perceives in these the body and blood 
of my Lord, while God imparts to me 
through my faith a pledge of my salvation. 
Why ? Because God has made the Supper 
the sign and the seal of a covenant 
between my soul and Himself, — a cove- 
nant in which all my part was done for me 
by Jesus Christ. 



IV. 

THE SUPPER A FESTIVAL, NOT 
A FAST. 

A MONG all the false notions concern- 
ing the Lord's Supper that have 
pervaded the Church, none has been more 
pernicious than that which has associated 
with it thoughts of gloom and severity. It 
is true that there is a vein of sadness in 
the past or historic view of the Supper. It 
was instituted at the beginning of the ter- 
rible sufferings undergone by Him who 
came to redeem the world, and the shadows 
of the coming agony — an agony so great 
that it pressed out that awful cry upon the 
cross — were already thrown upon him. 
And there was much in the surroundings 
of the first supper to increase this gloom. 
One of those who sat at the table was to 
betray his Lord; another was to deny 
him; all were to forsake him. The very 

2 



1 8 The Supper a Festival, not a Fast. 

emblems chosen by the Saviour were 
emblems of suffering, — of a broken body 
and of poured-out blood. 

But as soon as we leave the past the 
whole aspect of the Supper alters. The 
gloom and the suffering and the approach- 
ing death are gone, and only their results 
remain. This suffering wrought our release ; 
this death secured our life; this sorrow 
brought forth our joy. The very emblems 
now change their significance, and we see 
bread, the staff of life, and wine, that 
makes glad the heart of man. No severity 
is here, for these emblems tell of pardon; 
no sorrow is here, for they tell of the 
removal of sin, the source of sorrow; no 
gloom is here, for we are in the clear 
bright sunshine of God's love. We look 
not upon a dead Christ, but a risen Christ. 
We see not a suffering Saviour, but an 
exalted Saviour. Christ is not in the 
tomb; he is here, and we are with him. It 
is this that makes the Supper a feast, the 
one great festival of the Christian Church 



The Supper a Festival, not a Fast. 19 

It is true that as we eat this bread and 
drink this cup, we remember the Lord's 
death, but we are remembering it until he 
comes. He is coming again to perfect in 
glory what he began in suffering. We 
remember his death and the awful price he 
paid for our redemption, and we keep our 
eyes on the coming glory. Our deliver- 
ance is accomplished; our salvation is 
attained; and just before us is the crown 
of righteousness which the righteous Judge 
shall give to all who love His appearing. 
That crown of righteousness shall be given 
to us, as we pass through the heavenly 
gates in the name of the King of Glory, 
and hear our dear Lord's voice bidding us 
sit down at His board amid all the glories 
of our heavenly home. This is what the 
Supper means to us, — salvation here, glory 
there; and both the salvation and the glory 
are the work of him who tells us to as- 
semble together and remember him. 

Surely all the associations of the Supper 
should be those of joy and gratitude. It is 



20 The Supper a Festival, not a Fast. 

a feast, not a fast ; and an anthem of praise, 
not a miserere, should rise from our hearts 
as we gather around the table of our Lord. 

There is another thought, a thought too 
seldom considered. This holy feast is an 
occasion of joy not only to us, but also to 
our God. Is the thought too great? Is 
it impossible to think of the Infinite One 
rejoicing with us? Listen to the words 
addressed by the Spirit to every believing 
heart : " He will rejoice over thee with 
joy, he will rest [take his ease and com- 
fort] in his love; he will joy over thee 
with singing;" again, "As a bridegroom 
rejoiceth over a bride, even so will thy 
God rejoice over thee;" still again, "l 
will rejoice over them to do them good 
with my whole heart." Do not let us 
refuse to take to ourselves the comfort and 
the encouragement derived from knowing 
that God, our God, is to-day rejoicing with 
us over the blessed results of His wonderful 
love and grace. 



V. 

THE SUPPER A LOVE-FEAST. 

nr^HE Lord's Supper is a love-feast. In 
it we emphasize the great love of 
Jesus for us, we emphasize our love and 
gratitude to him, and we emphasize our 
love to one another as all being in Christ. 
We see him as our suffering substitute, 
and we recognize the brotherhood which 
exists between us and our fellow-believers 
— exists why? because we all belong to the 
race of Adam? No; that is what the 
world's philosophers say, who would have 
us love all men alike. 

There has been no natural bond of 
brotherhood between men, ever since sin 
entered into the world and separated one 
from the other, placing each in a state of 
isolation. The only brotherhood now to be 
found is among Christians, and this because 



22 The Supper a Love-Feast. 

they are in Christ, who has brought them 
out of isolation, and as the Head of a new 
race, established among his seed a bond 
of union that shall exist, forever. 

Our Lord's teaching makes a broad dis- 
tinction between these and the world, and 
tells us that our feeling regarding our 
brethren in Christ is not what we are to 
have regarding the world. Listen to his 
words; he is speaking to his Father. 
" I pray for them ; I pray not for the world, 
but for them that Thou hast given me out 
of the world. " That is emphatic, and 
draws a deep line between those who 
believe in Christ and those who do not 
believe. Again, " Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto the least of these," — not the 
" least of mankind," but "the least of these 
my brethren." Christ is identified with 
those who receive him, but he is not identi- 
fied with those who reject him. Undoubt- 
edly we are to love the world. God loves 
the world, and we are followers of God ; 
but this God-likeness of the soul, this broad 



The Supper a Love-Feast. 23 

affection for all the members of our race, 
is something very different from the love 
felt toward our fellow Christians, the 
family tie that binds us together because 
we are in Christ. 

There are commandments in the Church 
of Christ. The Antinomian notion that 
the children of God have no law is arrant 
folly. We have no law to obtain salva- 
tion; but we have a law, the holy, just, and 
good law of our holy, just, and good God, 
and we love it and love to obey it. Our 
Lord tells us that obedience is the mark 
of love to him. " If ye love me, keep my 
commandments ; " and then he adds a little 
further on, "This is my commandment, 
that ye love one another. " If the Church 
would but obey its Lord all its troubles 
would be over in a single day. All the 
sad fruits of our natural isolation, all anger 
and malice, all jealousy and backbiting, 
all bitter words and unkind thoughts, would 
disappear in a moment, and in their stead 
would be the fraternal recognition, the 



24 The Supper a Love-Feast. 

brotherly kindness, which caused men to 
say of the early Church, " See how these 
Christians love one another!" 

As we think to-day of the past, remem- 
bering all Christ has done for us, let us 
also think of the future, and plan what we 
can do for him. It is just as we obey him 
that we have a joyful experience and happy 
hearts and brighter views of our dear 
Lord. 



VI. 

THE SUPPER A PLEDGE OF 
GLORY. 

V\ 7E naturally think of the Lord's Sup- 
per as a memorial feast, as telling 
what Jesus wrought for us, of his humilia- 
tion and death in our behalf. And we 
naturally think of it as showing our com- 
munion with him and with one another, 
our participation in the sufferings of Jesus, 
and our Christian fellowship. But we do 
not so often think of it as a pledge of our 
eternal glory, a foretaste of that heavenly 
banquet at which every believer shall sit 
down when we all gather together at the 
marriage-supper of the Lamb. This glory 
is ours to-day. 

In his epistle to the Ephesians, Paul 
writes, "In whom [that is, in Christ] we 
have an inheritance," — not "will have" 



26 The Supper a Pledge of Glory. 

but "have," have at this very time. That 
we have not entered upon the possession 
of the inheritance does not affect the fact 
of our ownership. A man may become 
the heir to a large and rich estate in 
America and the man himself be in China. 
He has not entered into the full enjoyment 
of his inheritance; he cannot see it with 
his eyes; he does not know its details of 
hill and valley; he cannot tell all its 
resources of mine and field and river; but 
it is his, nevertheless. He is the rightful 
and acknowledged owner. So it is with 
our possessions in Christ. They are ours, 
though our ideas concerning them are unde- 
fined. We know about them in a general 
way. The apostle Peter tells us that they 
are incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, and 
reserved for us in that heaven toward 
which we are hastening ; and Paul says 
that man's mind is not now able to con- 
ceive the good which God has in store for 
us. It is this thought that robs death of all 
gloom to the Christian heart, that makes 



The Supper a Pledge of Glory. 27 

a Christian look forward to the time of his 
departure from this world with gladness 
and eagerness. Why should he not re- 
joice? He then enters upon the full glory 
of his inheritance in Christ. 

But, while the glory is in heaven, and 
while we must wait for it until we pass 
into the other world, God, who gives us 
the glory, also gives us earnests and 
pledges of its ownership, bidding us look 
upon these and handle them, and thus 
have our faith made strong. In this same 
epistle to the Ephesians, Paul tells us that 
the sealing of the Spirit is an earnest of 
the promised possession, and the Spirit 
uses the holy Supper, as he uses prayer, to 
perfect his work in the soul. It is not the 
mere observance of the rite, not the eating 
the bread and drinking the wine, that is to 
do us good. We may eat and drink, and 
be thoughtless and careless and formal, 
and then the exercise will be profitless to 
us. It is the spiritual grace contained in 
the outward rite that will make us grow in 



28 The Supper a Pledge of Glory. 

the Christian life. The Holy Spirit is 
given to every believer, and furnishes dis- 
cerning power to every believer; but the 
fruits of the Spirit will be enjoyed only 
when the heart welcomes Him and the will 
submits to His control. 

As we partake of the supper of our Lord 
to-day, let us keep this joyful thought 
before our minds, — not only does it memo- 
rialize our Lord's death, but it also con- 
veys to us a pledge from God — from God, 
who cannot lie — of the glory awaiting us. 
Let us eat and drink, using the God-given 
tokens whose full significance we shall 
never know until we enter our country 
above. 



VII. 

"COMMUNION." 

TI 7E speak, and rightly speak, of Com- 
munion seasons, but it is not always 
clear in our minds what the term means. 
It is not, as is often supposed, communion 
with the saints; that is a precious privi- 
lege, but it is not that which is enjoyed 
around the table of our Lord. The Holy 
Spirit explains the word " communion of 
the body and blood of Christ," that is, com- 
munion with Christ himself through the 
symbols of bread and wine. The same 
Greek word translated " communion " in 
the first epistle to the Corinthians is in the 
first epistle of John translated "fellow- 
ship," — "We have fellowship one with 
another," where the fellowship is not with 
other Christians but with God. One can 
enjoy the communion of saints only when 



30 " Communion. 3 ' 

in the company with other believers; but 
were a man cast away upon a desert island, 
or were he the only saint upon earth, he 
could with perfect propriety break the 
bread and drink the wine, and through the 
symbols enjoy communion with his God 
and Saviour. 



VIII. 

"FELLOWSHIP." 

A LL the unspeakable glories, present 
and future, promised us by our God, 
can be gathered into one word, — " fellow- 
ship," "fellowship with the Father and 
with His Son Jesus Christ." Do you ask 
what this means? I cannot tell you. Is 
it a partnership in business? Yes, and 
more. Is it the sweet intercourse of 
friends met to converse upon subjects dear 
to the hearts of all ? Yes, and more. Is it 
the sacred harmony of the family circle? 
Yes, it is this and more than this. Is it 
the mutual confidence and affection between 
husband and wife ? Yes, and more than 
this. All these are types and tokens, 
given, it is true, in God's word; but types 
and tokens, though divinely appointed, 



32 "Fellowship." 

fail to depict the intimate communion 
established between your soul, my fellow 
Christian, and the God of eternal life, 
manifested in Christ Jesus our Lord. 



IX. 

MISUSING THE SUPPER. 

TT is possible to misuse this holy ordi- 
nance of the Supper. There is no 
mystery about it, no more than there is 
about prayer or any other means by which 
we hold communion with God. There is 
always a certain amount of mystery when- 
ever the human and finite approaches the 
spiritual and infinite; but there is nothing 
specially mysterious about the Supper. 
Any misuse of the ordinance is not, there- 
fore, caused by a failure to grasp its hidden 
meaning. 

Nor is it because of any special grace 
given us through the Supper, — I mean 
more grace than can be given through other 
channels. When we pray, God gives us 
grace through our petitions to Him; when 
we engage in Christian service, God gives 
3 



34 Misusing the Supper. 

us grace through our obedience to Him; 
when we read His word, God gives us 
grace through the printed page. God has 
never said that He would give more grace 
through one channel than through another 
channel. It is not, therefore, because of 
its peculiar sanctity that we may misuse 
the Lord's Supper. 

Our misuse of it is when we fail to use 
it spiritually, when we come to it as a 
habit, when we treat it as a customary part 
of the religious service, as a mere external 
rite of the church. We misuse it when we 
fail to " discern the Lord's body." Paul 
uses this phrase in writing to the Chris- 
tians of Corinth, who had fallen into the 
habit of coming to the Lord's table as they 
would to a social festivity or to an ordi- 
nary meal at the house of a friend, forget- 
ting Him in whose commemoration it was 
instituted. They did not come together to 
remember the Lord's death; they came 
together to eat and to drink. The apostle 
tells them this was all wrong, and bids 



Misusing the Supper. 35 

them examine themselves and see how far 
they had departed from the true observance 
of the ordinance. 

" As often as ye eat this bread and drink 
this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's 
death," It is this human relation of Christ 
Jesus, and this human relation to us, that 
we are to discern ; our union with Christ 
and with his death, and therefore with 
his eternal life. "Discerning the Lord's 
body " is recognizing the fact that Christ 
died for me, and making my own all the 
benefits that flow from his broken body 
and shed blood. When we come to the 
table with a simplicity of faith appropriate 
to the simplicity of the ordinance, we per- 
ceive our oneness with Christ, and we gain 
from the feast much strength and great 
joy. We misuse it when neither the 
strength nor the joy is obtained. 



X. 



CHRIST'S DIVINITY IN THE 
SUPPER. 

A S we approach the table of our Lord, 
we love to think of the human side 
of the feast, of the human side of our 
Lord, of his human love and sympathy, of 
his full and complete humanity, in which 
he was tried in all points as we are. But 
there is also another line of thought which 
we must not forget, and this is the divine 
side of the Supper, the divine side of our 
Jesus. Were the invitation he extends to 
every one of us, to-day, merely an invitation 
of love and sympathy, it would make the 
feast a very tender one but never a satis- 
fying one. No one who has felt the heavy 
weight of sin, the painful accusations of a 
wounded conscience, the oppressive antici- 
pations of coming retribution, does not 



Christ 's Divinity in the Supper. 37 

know that something more than love and 
sympathy, precious as these are, is needed 
before the soul can be at peace. And just 
here we turn to the divine side of the Sup- 
per and see that it symbolizes atonement, 
and that the atonement was God's atone- 
ment. Jesus never relinquished his God- 
hood. He relinquished its active use for 
a time to resume it again when his humilia- 
tion was over, but he never relinquished 
his Godhood ; and because he was God as 
well as man, his atonement for sin has an 
infinite depth of value which eternity itself 
cannot exhaust. 

When we read in the Scriptures that 
God sent His Son into the world to obtain 
eternal life for men, we know that there 
was a movement of God, an activity of 
God toward this end. It was this move- 
ment and activity that made the work a 
divine one, and so made the taking away 
of man's sin possible. If Jesus had been 
only man, and not the Eternal Word become 
flesh, no sin would ever have been taken 



38 Christ's Divinity in the Supper. 

away. It is as we see our degraded condi- 
tion, as we see that God must interfere for 
our rescue, see that God did interfere, that 
the Son of God became the Son of Man, 
that God stood in man's place, that a God- 
man satisfied God's justice; it is as we 
allow this divine side of our Saviour to be 
recognized by us, as we see that this table 
is Christ's table and God's table, that the 
work of salvation is Christ's work and 
God's work, — it is as we see this, that our 
souls are satisfied and our consciences are 
at rest. We do not for a moment hide 
from ourselves our sinfulness and guilt; 
but we look upon our sins without fear, 
knowing that God has cast them into the 
depths of the sea. Let us come to the 
table of our Master to derive strength from 
the contemplation of the divine character 
of our Redeemer. 

You remember that the prophet Elijah 
once sat down under a juniper-tree, faint 
and discouraged; and then the Lord sent 
an angel and showed him bread baked on 



Christ's Divinity in the Supper, 39 

the coals and a cruse of water. Elijah 
ate and drank and went in the strength of 
that food forty days and forty nights. So 
will it be with us. We can obtain strength 
to-day that will not fail us to-morrow, or 
next week, or next year. There was noth- 
ing in the bread and water that made them 
suffice for Elijah. There is nothing in 
this ordinance, there is nothing in the 
fundamental doctrine upon which the ordi- 
nance rests, there is nothing in the natu- 
ral mind as we receive the doctrine and 
think over it; but there is a power of God 
behind all these which will give a divine 
efficacy to them all, and make the holy 
Supper a means of strengthening us for 
the remainder of our lives on earth. 



XL 

CHRIST'S HUMANITY IN THE 
SUPPER. 

r I ^HE holy Supper with its emblems 
brings before our minds, and so 
before our hearts, the fact that our divine 
Redeemer is also man. He is the Infinite 
God brought into limitations like our own. 
Instead of presenting himself to us as the 
great, strong, absolute, and eternal God, he 
comes to us as flesh of our flesh, as moved 
by the same sympathies, as rejoicing and 
sorrowing, and yet as divine. He loves as 
we love; he pities as we pity; he comforts 
as we comfort, with the love and the pity 
and the comfort raised to a divine height. 
We are not to explain away these facts of 
our Lord's life by any metaphysical sub- 
tlety. He is one with us. We see him 
and hear him, not afar off, but close at 
hand. 



Christ's Humanity in the Supper. 41 

Let us apply this line of thought to the 
holy ordinance we this day celebrate. We 
find that God has put into it nothing that 
would tend to keep us at a distance from 
Him and everything that would tend to 
bring us into close proximity, into familiar 
intimacy, with Him. We have here a table 
spread with the simplest of tokens, with 
something to eat and something to drink, 
the ordinary food of daily life. We are 
here at a supper; and a supper at once sug- 
gests the dear home-circle with the father's 
care and the fraternal greetings. We have 
come not to listen to threatenings but to 
hear love-whispers, not to be punished but 
to be made glad. We have no long list of 
duties to perform, no magical incantations 
to pursue. We are here to remember what 
our Lord has done for us. Everything 
about us tells of the free family life, the 
sweet tie of kinship with its readiness to 
share and to sympathize. 

This closeness of intercourse is just 
what God would see in each of us. From 



42 Christ's Humanity in the Supper. 

it will spring joy and gratitude, strength 
and happiness; from it will come the sym- 
metrical development of the Christ-life in 
us, in its active influence upon others and 
in its subjective enjoyment within our own 
souls. 



XII. 

THE DOMESTIC ELEMENT IN 
THE SUPPER. 

TN Psalm LXXXIV. we read these words, 
"Blessed are they that dwell in thy 
courts ; they will still [that is, always] be 
praising thee," — in other words, a perma- 
nent dwelling in God's house is the posi- 
tion of permanent joy. 

What is dwelling in God's house? It 
cannot mean dwelling in the literal temple 
any more than the similar phrase in Psalm 
XXIII. , "I will dwell in the house of 
the Lord forever," means dwelling in the 
literal temple. The literal temple could 
not be entered by David or any of his 
tribe. The expression must have a spirit- 
ual import, and it had this from the begin- 
ning. It was never intended to be taken 
literally. Dwelling in God's house is 



44 The Domestic Element in the Supper. 

consciously dwelling in the presence of 
God and His work of redemption; it is 
dwelling so near Christ that the facts of 
his grace and love are always impressing 
themselves on the heart and on the mind. 
The Lord's house is not a locality but a 
condition. It is the condition or frame of 
mind and heart constructed by the Holy 
Spirit in which the believer may dwell. 
Alas ! we all do not dwell there. We 
sometimes leave the company of our Lord 
and run off to dwell with the world ; but 
each one of us has the power and the 
privilege of dwelling in the house of the 
Lord all the time. 

In the supper of the Lord we find the 
same teaching. There is a domestic 
thought in it. Suppers are eaten at home, 
and it is the table in the Lord's house (or 
home) at which we now gather. We do 
not come here merely as invited guests; 
we are more than that. We are children, 
members of God's family, in the house of 
our Father. I do not mean in the outward 



The Domestic Element in the Supper. 45 

edifice; I mean the intercourse and com- 
munion which are symbolized by the 
emblems spread before us. 

Let us make these symbols alive to-day, 
so that they will show us the truths they 
contain, finding a real presence of our 
Lord not in the bread and the wine, but 
in the experience of our hearts. So shall 
we dwell in the house of our Lord, the 
only position of joy. Here we shall be 
happy; here we shall be safe; here we 
shall be free from the enticements of the 
world and the molestations of Satan. Here 
we shall know the blessedness of which 
the psalmist speaks, for we shall be exer- 
cising our right as God's children to dwell 
in His house now, on earth, long before 
we reach heaven; and we shall ever be 
praising Him. 



XIII. 

THE INDIVIDUAL ELEMENT IN 
THE SUPPER. 

HPHERE is one aspect in which I 
always like to look at the Lord's 
Supper, — that presenting the relation of 
the individual soul to its Redeemer. God 
never saves men in the aggregate, nor did 
Christ die for the world in the aggregate. 
God calls His people by name, and Christ 
died for each individual soul. Our Lord 
comes to each of us to-day, to each of us 
whose names are now recorded in heaven, 
who have been loved, called, saved. 

The holy ordinance we celebrate is fitly 
named when thus viewed. It is a " sup- 
per. " Now, a host does not summon the 
guests to a supper in the aggregate, but 
sends to each a special invitation, meets 
each with a special welcome, gives each a 



The Individual Element in the Supper. 47 

seat at the table, sees that the wants of 
each are supplied. So the Lord Jesus 
invites each of us to the feast, is ready to 
greet each with his loving welcome, to 
lead each to his own table and there serve 
us with the choicest food. 

Is there any timid soul here, — timid, 
I mean, at the thought of the world's high- 
way along which we all have to pass; 
any soul beset with spectres and laden 
with forebodings; any soul that fears to 
meet the dark future or to face the threat- 
ening storm ? Well, the disciples once 
strove all night against the high waves 
and boisterous winds of the Sea of Galilee, 
and at last saw Jesus walking on the waves 
and through the winds. The sight terri- 
fied them the more, and they cried out in 
their fear. Then Jesus spoke : "Be of 
good cheer, it is I. Be not afraid/' Such 
are his words to all these timid ones. He 
is on the waves ; he rules the storm, and 
whispers, "It is I. Be not afraid." 

Is there any soul among us timid with a 



48 The Individual Element in the Supper. 

far worse timidity, — any soul ashamed of 
Jesus; any soul that has hidden its talent 
in a napkin, that has concealed its uni- 
form from sight, that is afraid to confess 
that it belongs to him, and to serve him 
before a world that hates him? Well, 
Peter was once ashamed of his Lord, and 
denied all knowledge of him once, and 
twice, and again. How did the Lord deal 
with Peter? He turned and looked at 
him. That look broke Peter's heart; and 
when a few days later Jesus at the seaside 
asked him, "Simon, lovest thou me?" his 
timidity had vanished, and the answer 
came from a heart bursting with devotion, 
"Thou knowest that I love thee." I think, 
were Jesus with us to-day in visible form, 
such would be his look and words to every 
soul that fears to own its allegiance to 
him. 

Have we with us any wearied souls, — 
souls tired of the long, sharp conflict and 
ready to sink in despair? I think I know 
how the Lord would address these. " Could 



The Individual Element in the Supper. 49 

ye not watch one hour with me?" This 
earthly life will soon be over; heaven's 
eternal rest is just before you; the 
heavenly mansion is now preparing for 
you. Can you not watch one hour ? 

And are there with us any Nathanael 
souls, — souls that look up into Jesus' face 
and say in full assurance of faith, " Master, 
thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King 
of Israel " ? I think I know his reply to 
these triumphing ones. " Henceforth you 
shall see the heavens opened, and the 
angels of God ascending and descending 
upon the Son of Man." Because of the 
fulness of their faith such shall hold con- 
stant communion and communication with 
their God; the heavenly messenger shall 
be seen busy in their behalf, and Jesus 
shall form the link of intercourse between 
heaven and themselves. 

It is a coarse, crude notion that because 

many are loved, the love for the individual 

is diminished. Jesus loves us all; but his 

affection for each is as warm as if each 

4 



50 The Individual Element in the Supper. 

were the only one in the universe. Let us 
recognize this truth, and come to his table 
to receive his blessing and the tokens of 
his personal affection. So shall our hearts 
be strengthened; so shall we be comforted 
and refreshed; so shall we be filled with 
joy and peace. 



XIV. 

THE SUPPER A MEANS AGAINST 
HEART-HARDENING. 

"VX 7HEN the disciples upon the Sea of 
Galilee, after the feeding of the 
multitude, saw Jesus walking upon the 
water, they were sore afraid, and cried out 
for fear. The day before they had wit- 
nessed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, 
and had seen the sufficiency of the Master 
to meet every emergency; but now in a 
new emergency, they, in the words of the 
evangelist, forgot the miracle of the loaves, 
because their hearts were hardened. 

Is not this a type of our experience? 
Has not each of us seen the miracle of the 
loaves ? Has not each of us known special 
visits of God's grace when His loving 
kindness and His power were plainly seen? 
Have we not recorded, or thought we did, 



52 A Means against Heart-hardening. 

such in our memories? Have not our 
hearts been full of gratitude for the marvel- 
lous service God's good hand had wrought 
for us ? Have we not sung with the psalm- 
ist, " Because he hath inclined his ear unto 
me, therefore will I call upon him as long 
as I live," and thought that nothing could 
ever make us tremble again? And then 
— then we passed on our way, and new 
events occurred, new circumstances sur- 
rounded us, new dangers loomed up before 
us, and the old terror seized us. Our 
hearts were hardened, and we forgot the 
miracle of the loaves. 

Now the world about us, headed by 
Satan, the prince of the world, is ever try- 
ing to accomplish this work of hardening 
Christian hearts and so blunting the edge 
of Christian love and zeal ; and there is 
much in our own hearts that responds to 
this movement of the world. The harden- 
ing assumes many forms, — business rela- 
tions, social connections, the make of the 
mind or its acquired habits of thought. 



A Means against Heart-hardening. 53 

In some shape or other, to a greater or less 
extent, each of us meets it every day. 

God in His compassionate and tender 
care for us has provided means by which 
we may resist this hardening process, and 
among these means is the Lord's Supper. 
He gives it to us as a rallying-point for 
our wandering faculties, that we may gather 
them together and concentrate them upon 
the most interesting event of Christ's 
eventful life on earth. There is nothing 
of mystery in the Supper, there is noth- 
ing dreadful in it. It is simply coming in 
obedience to God's command to remember 
Jesus and his work for the souls of men, 
and then expecting to receive the divine 
blessing because the divine command has 
been obeyed. The blessing is sure to 
come, — a new accession of strength, a con- 
sciousness of greater power to battle with 
the world and sin, a calm, certain know- 
ledge of coming victory. The remem- 
brance of the table at which we have sat, 



54 A Means against Heart-hardening. 

the remembrance of Jesus and our com- 
munion with him, will keep our hearts ten- 
der, and will ward off the hardening that 
would make us forget the fulness of grace 
offered us by our Lord. 



XV. 

THE SUPPER A MEANS OF GAIN- 
ING ASSURANCE. 

TT is one thing to know the Lord, and 
it is another thing to know that we 
know him. Every Christian knows the 
Lord, or he would not be a Christian ; but 
every Christian does not know that he 
knows Him. Every Christian has know- 
ledge of God, but every Christian has not 
the knowledge of this knowledge. God 
would have all His children know that they 
know Him, would have each of them be 
assured of union to Him; for upon this 
assurance depends all their steadiness in 
the Christian course. All our power in 
the Christian life rests upon the certainty 
that we belong to God, — not only the 
power to be useful and helpful to others, 
but also the power of enjoyment, the 



$6 A Means of gaining Assurance. 

inward, spiritual experience of our own 
hearts. 

No Christian who knows that he knows 
Jesus ever becomes worldly. The thing 
is impossible. He keeps himself from 
the world, not by observing any set of 
rules, but because there is no sympathy 
between him and the world. Adopting 
the world's maxims, practising the world's 
methods, identifying himself in any way 
with the world, is repugnant to him. 

There is a way in which we are to love 
the world, and there is a way in which we 
are not to love the world. We are not to 
love the world's vanity and folly; we are 
not to seek worldly companions; we are 
not to mingle in worldly society or to 
pursue worldly honors or to be engrossed 
in worldly business. We are to be separate 
from the world in all these. " Puritani- 
cal," says one; "illiberal," says another. 
It is Bible truth; it is the teaching of the 
Holy Spirit from Genesis to the Revela- 
tion. We cannot repeat this great funda- 



A Means of gaining Assurance. 57 

mental truth too often. By virtue of our 
union with Christ we are to be separated 
from the world in all its shapes. If we 
value our Lord's honor and our own peace, 
worldliness must be excluded from our 
lives. We all know when we are worldly; 
there is no need for us to split hairs about 
the matter; there is no need to propose 
questions in casuistry. We know when 
we are worldly, and God knows it. 

And there is a way in which we are to 
love the world ; it is the way God loves it. 
God's love for the world prompted Him to 
seek the world's salvation; our love for 
the world should prompt us to seek the 
world's salvation. That is the only love for 
the world a Christian should have. It will 
make us eager to convert the world, will 
make us watchful for souls, will make us 
alive to the interests of the kingdom of God, 
so that no scheme of evangelization will 
fail to secure our co-operative sympathy. 

This table with all its sweet associations 
is a means of making sure to ourselves 



58 A Means of gaining Assurance. 

that we know the Lord, and of excluding 
worldliness from our hearts, not by any 
system of rigid self-denial, but by an 
absorbing love for Christ. Let us use the 
holy Supper in such a way, and assure our- 
selves of our knowledge of God. 



XVI. 

THE SUPPER A STRENGTH AND 
JOY. 

r I ^HE Lord's Supper ought to develop 
two results within us, — it should 
fill us with strength in our Christian char- 
acter and life, and it should fill us with 
joy and peace in our souls. The Supper 
is a feast, and a feast is for sustenance and 
for rejoicing. The emblems selected by 
God Himself, the bread to be eaten and 
the wine to be drunk, show the spiritual 
partaking of the flesh and blood of Christ ; 
that is, show constant spiritual communion 
with him. Without him we can do noth- 
ing, — not nothing relatively, not nothing 
poetically or sentimentally, but nothing 
actually and absolutely. We can do noth- 
ing, we can say nothing, we are nothing, 
except as we derive our spiritual strength 
from him. 



60 The Supper a Strength and Joy. 

I said that the emblems denote constant 
communion with Christ, and remember 
that we had nothing to do with the selec- 
tion of the emblems. We never came 
together and agreed that we should do thus 
and so in remembrance of Christ's death, 
as some have agreed to put flowers in a 
church to signify the beauty and fragrance 
arising from his resurrection. God ap- 
pointed these emblems, and therefore He 
meant the Supper to be a channel of bless- 
ing to our souls. We get all our strength 
from communion with Christ, and at his 
table we are brought into the closest com- 
munion with him. And so it gives us new 
vigor, — vigor to overcome sin in our own 
hearts and vigor to witness for our Lord 
before men. 

And at the table we gain accession of 
peace. All the sacrificial feasts of the 
older world were covenant feasts. Just as 
in covenant transactions between man and 
man a beast was slain, and hands struck, 
and the bargain consummated over its 



The Supper a Strength and Joy. 61 

dead body, so does God covenant with us 
over the slain body of our Redeemer. All 
God's covenants are pledges, and this 
thought should make us bold in claiming 
our right to sonship, our right to heaven 
and glory eternal. Such claiming is not 
presumption but humility, is not boldness 
but faith. The sonship and heaven and 
glory are pledged to us, are ours by cove- 
nant, — a covenant in which our only part 
is our acceptance of our Redeemer's fin- 
ished work. We should no more doubt 
our sonship and all its glorious sequences 
than we doubt the existence of our Lord. I 
think we should never doubt it, were it not 
for our dallying with the world. Now, the 
absence of doubt regarding the future, 
the certainty that our sins are forgiven, 
the knowledge that our true relation to 
God has been established and heaven 
secured, will fill the soul with peace; and 
peace is the foundation of happiness and 
joy. 

All this is emblemed in the Supper of 



62 The Supper a Strength and Joy, 

our Lord. Let us use this memorial feast, 
this covenant feast, as God means us to 
use it, and thus, through our communion 
with Him, gain from it new strength (the 
source of usefulness), and new peace (the 
source of happiness), as we rest upon 
the pledge His love has furnished us. 



XVII. 

WHAT GOD SAYS IN THE SUPPER. 

TF we analyze the holy ordinance we 
are about to celebrate, we shall find 
that God is speaking to us in it. He 
speaks to us in many ways, but we do not 
always listen to His voice. We allow the 
great world without us and our passions 
within us so to absorb our attention, that we 
do not hear what He is saying. He never 
slackens in His interest in us, but we often 
slacken in our regard for Him. Let us, 
His people, seated at His table to-day, hear 
what He would say to us in the holy 
Supper. 

He tells us first of our own utter insuffi- 
ciency. Just as bread and drink must be 
taken in order to secure the growth and 
strength of the body, so must Christ be 
taken in order to secure the growth and 



64 What God says in the Supper. 

strengthening of our spiritual life; and 
just as we must daily eat and drink in 
order to prevent bodily starvation and 
death, so must Christ be constantly applied 
to, if we would not have our spiritual life 
wither and decay. Christ is our Portion, 
and without him we can do nothing. 

He tells us further that we need not 
only Christ, but a crucified Christ. God 
does not speak to us about a Christ of 
poetical fancy, or about a Christ of aesthe- 
tic culture, or about a Christ whose beau- 
tiful life we are to admire. The world 
that lies in wickedness would gladly accept 
such a Christ and keep its sins all the time. 
No, no; the broken bread and poured-out 
wine tell of a broken body and shed blood. 
They speak of suffering and death, of 
stripes through which healing has come to 
our souls. The Christ of whom God here 
tells us is the Christ who took our place, 
who bore our punishment, who released us 
from condemnation. And so our relation 
to this Christ, who is God's Christ as well 



What God says in the Supper. 65 

as our Saviour, is a very sure one. It is a 
relation sealed and ratified in blood. And 
it is a very close one. Christ becomes our 
life. We live in him; and God makes 
him everything to us, wisdom and sanctifi- 
cation as well as redemption. 

As we sit at the table this afternoon, 
let us listen to God's whispers of all He 
has done for us by sending His Son into 
our world. 



XVIII. 

GOD'S LOVE FOR THE BELIEVER. 

HTHERE is one way in which God loves 
every human being. " God so loved 
the world, that He gave His only begotten 
Son,thatwhosoeverbelievethon Him should 
not perish but have everlasting life. " But 
there is another way in which God loves 
His dear children. It is not the same love 
as the other, for it has in it an element — 
what shall I call it? a family element, a 
domestic element, which the other has not. 
The former is a holy love and is consistent 
with God's perfect character, but the latter 
is the love of a father delightedly exercis- 
ing itself toward his darling child. And 
there is a curious thing about this love, — 
it follows our love. The former, God's 
love for the world, antedates our love. 
Our love is consequent upon it. "We 



God's Love for the Believer. 67 

love Him because He first loved us;" but 
the latter is different. In the gospel by 
John, in our Lord's address to his disci- 
ples, we read, "For the Father Himself 
loveth you, because ye have loved me and 
have believed that I came out from God," 

— that is, the Father loves you because 
you have put your trust in me as your 
Divine Saviour, and have given me your 
hearts. This thought is also conveyed by 
the same apostle in his first epistle, "Our 
fellowship [our close intimate companion- 
ship] is with the Father and with His Son 
Jesus Christ." Again in John's gospel, 
" He that loveth me shall be loved by my 
Father,'' — there is the sequence; and a 
little further on, "If a man love me, my 
Father will love him, and we will come 
unto him and make our abode with him," 

— there is the communion. 

This thought of God's paternal love for 
us following our love for Him, of our 
recognition of Christ Jesus in his repre- 
sentative character, and our acceptance of 



68 God's Love for the Believer. 

him as our personal Saviour, being the 
source, or rather the occasion, of God's 
paternal affection for us, is not a new 
teaching. In the Messianic psalms we 
can trace the same thing. We can there 
see God's offering to us, — our salvation 
obtained through the sufferings and death 
of His Son; then, on the other side, the 
response of our hearts in faith ; and then, 
communion, fellowship, the outpouring of 
the family tenderness upon us. 

In the ordinance we celebrate to-day are 
the same thoughts. Here are the emblems 
of suffering, and yet it is a supper, a family 
feast, at which they are displayed. God 
takes bread and wine, the ordinary food of 
man, to denote the broken body and shed 
blood of the Lord Jesus, as if He would 
connect the two thoughts in our minds. 
How the remembrance of this holy intimacy 
with God, this recognition of Christ as the 
expression of the glory of God and yet our 
Brother, bringing us into the same rela- 
tions to God which he sustains, saying to 



God's Love for the Believer. 69 

us, "My God and your God, my Father 
and your Father," — I say, how the appre- 
hension of this family relation, this pater- 
nal affection of God for each one of us, 
Christ's blood-bought people, gives us 
boldness ! How it removes all fear as it 
whispers to every trembling heart that 
doubt and trembling are out of place ! We 
are God's beloved children; we enter a 
Father's house, we sit down at a Father's 
table, and are greeted by a Father's 
welcome. 



XIX. 

GOD'S DELIGHT IN THE 
BELIEVER. 

TN Psalm XXXIII. it is stated, "The eye 
of the Lord is upon them that fear 
Him, upon them that hope in His mercy." 
The phrase in the first clause is an Orien- 
tal one, and means a tender, loving, sym- 
pathizing eye. In Psalm CXLVII. we meet 
with the thought in another form. "The 
Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear 
Him, in those that hope in His mercy." 
The thought is the same, — the pleasure of 
the Lord in them that hope in His mercy. 

We perhaps have never allowed these 
words to make their full impression upon 
our minds. We often think of our rela- 
tions toward a God of grace, but not so 
often of God's gracious relations toward 
us. We think of our duties, of our love 



God's Delight in the Believer. 71 

that is so feeble when it ought to be so 
strong, but do we sufficiently meditate upon 
God's love for us? Do we realize that His 
love is a genuine affection, and that its 
exercise gives pleasure and joy to the 
divine heart, just as the exercise of our 
affection gives pleasure and joy to our 
hearts ? 

"The Lord takes pleasure in them that 
hope in His mercy." That is our position 
to-day. We have all our hope in the 
divine mercy. We have no other hope than 
this, — the tender mercy of our loving God. 
Then, God takes pleasure in us, delights 
in us, rejoices in us, rests in us. It is a 
grand thought, almost too grand to be 
believed, and yet it is a true thought and 
ought to be believed. In spite of all our 
unworthiness, all our sinfulness, all our 
waywardness, the Lord takes pleasure in 
us, has confidence in us. You remember 
what he said to Abraham (the representa- 
tive of them that hope in God's mercy) 
before the destruction of Sodom, " Shall I 



72 God's Delight in the Believer. 

hide from Abraham the thing that I do?" 
It is the warm, loving language of One 
whose deep and confiding affection is cen- 
tred upon the man before Him, and longs 
to pour itself out upon its object. 

Let us claim this privilege for ourselves, 
recognizing the tender affection God has 
for every one of us. It is not the affection 
of a far-off sovereign, though that would 
be much. It is the affection of a dear, 
trusting friend who has so much at stake 
(if I may use the expression) in us. 

Let us dwell upon this thought as we 
partake of the holy Supper in memory of 
the Lord Jesus, through whom all this glory 
comes to you and to me. 



XX. 

THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD. 

TN Psalm XC. Moses uses this expres- 
sion, " Let the beauty of the Lord 
our God be upon us." Five hundred years 
after Moses, David sang in Psalm XXVII. , 
"One thing have I desired of the Lord, 
that will I seek after, — to behold the 
beauty of the Lord," echoing the in- 
spired words of Moses uttered so long 
before. "The beauty of the Lord" — 
it is a very strong word in Hebrew. It 
does not refer to any external beauty; 
it refers to beauty of soul, and might be 
translated sweetness. " Let the sweetness 
of the Lord our God be upon us " — beauty 
of character, affection, tenderness, deep 
sensitiveness, — all are involved in the 
word. 

At the holy table it is just this thought 
that is emphasized. We are here to 



74 The Beauty of the Lord, 

behold the beauty of our Lord. Our 
Saviour's wonderful sweetness, his tender- 
ness of affection, can never be too highly 
appreciated by us. We have never appre- 
ciated it as we ought. It is hard for us to 
realize that the Lord of Glory loves us 
individually with a deeper, sweeter, in- 
tenser love than any human being can feel 
for us ; and yet it is this that we have 
come here to commemorate, — the dying 
love of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And here I think is the key to all true 
Christian life, — the appreciation of the 
sweetness of the Lord Jesus. Wherever 
that is strong the Christian life is flour- 
ishing; wherever that life is languid, the 
appreciation of the love, the tenderness of 
Jesus, is deficient. As we partake to-day 
of the emblems of his dying love, may we 
all better appreciate the sweetness, the 
loveliness, the beauty of our Lord ! 



XXL 

PSALM XXIII. AND THE SUPPER. 

nr^HERE is no more delightful work in 
which the Christian can engage 
than the work of finding the gospel in the 
Old Testament, of seeing it hidden away 
where one would scarcely think of looking 
for it, showing that the same blessed sal- 
vation belonged to the days of Abraham 
and of David and of ourselves. There has 
been but one salvation and one Saviour 
from the beginning. 

Thoughts of Psalm XXIII. have been 
much in my mind to-day. It is a psalm in 
which the emotions described by the psalm- 
ist are the emotions of every Christian who 
lives close to his Lord. It speaks of a good 
Shepherd, and Jesus calls himself by that 
very title. It speaks of wanting nothing, 
and we at once think of the full supply 



j6 Psalm XXIII. and the Supper. 

that Christ always gives his own, of that 
grace which is sufficient for every emer- 
gency of life. It speaks of paths of right- 
eousness, — not man's righteousness, for 
it is God who leads through them, — a 
righteousness not our own, but purchased 
for us by him who is called "Jehovah our 
Righteousness," and bestowed on us by 
the God of our salvation. This truth the 
world has never discovered. It could never 
have been conceived of, except by revela- 
tion from the Spirit of God. 

There is one verse of the psalm which 
is, I think, especially applicable to Chris- 
tian experience. It is part of the figura- 
tive language of the psalm ; but the psalms 
were intended for our instruction, and we 
are to interpret their figurative language 
and apply it to ourselves. The verse is 
this: "Thou preparest a table before me 
in the presence of mine enemies; thou 
anointest my head with oil; my cup run- 
neth over." What does the psalmist, what 
does the Holy Spirit who indited the psalm, 



Psalm XXIII. and the Supper. 77 

mean? He means that in the presence of 
our spiritual foes, in the presence of our 
sins, in the presence of our great enemy 
who is ever trying to lead us into sin, God 
spreads for us the table of His bounty. 
We have it symbolized before us in the 
elements of bread and wine, which repre- 
sent the gift of gifts, the grace which 
enables us, weak as we are, to withstand 
all the assaults of our spiritual foes and 
to come off more than conquerors. This 
table spread for us by God is the Lord 
Jesus Christ, of whom we partake by faith, 
in whom we become strong against our 
spiritual foes, and through whom we have 
power to resist their fiercest attacks. 

Anointing with oil is symbolic of spirit- 
ual impartation, and represents the spiritual 
benefits we have in Christ. The cup is 
the emblem of joy. The verse belongs to 
us of to-day whom the Good Shepherd is 
leading in paths of righteousness, for whom 
God has spread a table in the midst of this 
wilderness of sin, at whigh all our wants 



y8 Psalm XXIII. and the Supper. 

are supplied, at which we become strong 
in Christ, while our cup of joy is running 
over because of the divine intervention in 
our behalf. 

The last verse of the psalm appropriately 
follows : " Surely goodness and mercy shall 
follow me all the days of my life, and I 
will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. " 
This last declaration is one to be made our 
own by all of us who stand to-day on this 
mount of privilege. It is because the 
Lord is our Shepherd, because He leads in 
the paths of righteousness, because He has 
spread a table for us, because He has filled 
our cup to overflowing, that we know that 
we shall dwell in His house forever. Let 
us keep near to Him ; let us live under His 
roof; let us not identify ourselves with a 
world that hates Him, but identify ourselves 
with His people in their life and work. 



XXII. 

THE TWO COVENANTS. 

TN the remarkable and exquisitely 
beautiful benediction which closes 
the epistle to the Hebrews are these words, 
"the blood of the everlasting covenant." 
What does the phrase mean ? It is some- 
thing in which each Christian is personally 
interested, for it refers to our blessed 
Lord, and it is connected with our personal 
holiness. It is evidently Christ's blood 
that is spoken of, and Christ's blood always 
means his sufferings, his atoning death. 
Why is Christ's death called "the blood of 
the everlasting covenant " ? 

When we read the story of God's deal- 
ings with man, we find two covenants 
mentioned. One was the covenant God 
made with man at his creation, — a cove- 
nant stamped upon the intellectual and 



80 The Two Covenants. 

moral nature of every man, and assented 
to by man's intellect and conscience. It 
ran in this way: "If man will obey his 
Maker, then his Maker will be his guide 
and guard forever." This covenant was 
broken when man disobeyed his Maker. 
It was not an everlasting covenant, but 
ended by man's discomfiture by reason of 
his weakness and wickedness. 

The other covenant presents new feat- 
ures. The parties are the same, — God 
and man, — but the condition is very dif- 
ferent. The old one was, " If man will 
obey Me I will be his guide and guard; " 
the new one is, " If man will trust Me, I 
will be his guide and guard." All that 
God asks from us is the trust of a loving 
heart. Obedience will flow from this lov- 
ing trust, but obedience is not the criterion 
of our salvation. Salvation is brought us 
through God's everlasting covenant, and 
all we have to do in that covenant is to 
trust God. 

The "blood of the everlasting covenant " 



The Two Covenants. 81 

points us to Christ's sufferings and death as 
making the way by which these covenant 
relations could be established, as making 
it possible for the Holy Spirit to possess 
our hearts and guide and guard us. It is 
because of Christ's work that the covenant 
is an everlasting one. We can rest upon it, 
knowing that there will never be a time in 
the far-off future when it will come to an 
end. Its peace and joy are not like those 
of our earthly experiences, which always 
carry with them the thought of their ter- 
mination. The peace and joy it gives 
will last throughout eternity. It can never 
be broken, for God sustains both sides of 
it. In the first covenant God sustained 
one side and man sustained one side — 
man's side broke down. In the new cove- 
nant God sustains both sides; He sustains 
His own side on His throne and man's side 
in the believer's heart. We have a right 
to rejoice to-day as those in everlasting- 
covenant with God in Jesus Christ. 
6 



XXIII. 

THE SUPPER AND DEPARTED 
SAINTS. 

' I % HERE is one thought connected with 
-*- the Lord's Supper upon which I love 
to meditate, one of the many delightful 
aspects which it presents to the believing 
heart. It is the thought of the presence 
with us at these scenes of high and heav- 
enly enjoyment of those glorified ones who 
once sat with us and who have now gone 
from us. Heaven is not far off but close 
at hand; and where would these, our friends 
and companions withdrawn for a little 
while from our sight, more readily throng 
about us, where would they contemplate 
us with intenser interest, than when we 
assemble around the table of our common 
Lord? 



The Supper and departed Saints. 83 

It is not true that the saints in glory 
care nothing for the affairs of this earth 
or for us who are still upon it. Christ 
stands in the same relation to them as 
he stands to us. The divine care and 
protection which we daily need and for 
which we pray, are theirs, are now bearing 
in them the full fruitage of glorification. 
And Christ stands in the same relation to 
us as he stands to them. He is our Saviour 
as he is their Saviour. The tie between 
them and us is still binding because we 
all are in Christ. They recognize this tie. 
They know us now far better than when 
they were bodily with us. They have a 
deeper interest in watching Christ's work 
advance in our hearts, for now they have 
the interest of heaven added to the interest 
they felt on earth. And they are looking 
forward to the day of re-union with us with 
an eagerness of anticipation which we can- 
not even imagine, for they know what 
heavenly joy is, and long with unspeak- 
able longing for our participation in its 
blessed fulness. 



84 The Supper and departed Saints. 

Generations pass, but God's work re- 
mains. Their earthly part in this work is 
consummated, but there is much to be done. 
Since they have the mind of Christ, they 
must cherish the liveliest interest in the 
progress of his kingdom, in the triumphs of 
his grace. Can we not think of them as 
looking to us to do that work for him 
which they are no longer able to perform ? 
God, the saints, and the angels are watch- 
ing us. Let us in the strength gained 
through this holy ordinance faithfully 
strive to do our part in Christ's work, by 
conforming our lives to his will and by 
commending him to others. 



XXIV. 

REMEMBERING JESUS' WORDS. 

/^\NE of the many memories we have of 
Jesus as we sit around his table, is 
the remembrance of his words. In the 
last address of the Lord to his disciples, 
just before his suffering and after he had 
instituted the Supper for the observance 
of his Church during all time, and so an 
address to all his disciples, we find three 
grand divisions of thought which are ap- 
propriate for us to-day. He first speaks 
of the need and the meaning of affliction; 
then, of the development of mutual love, 
of high and heavenly love for one another 
as a result of affliction; and then, of the 
power through which the result was at- 
tained, the working of the Spirit of God. 

In the first, he likens himself to a vine, 
and his disciples to the vine's branches, 



86 Remembering Jesus' Words. 

receiving all their vitality from it. He 
says that if any be separated from him, it 
is a dead branch, is without life, and fit 
only for the burning. He tells us that if 
any branch be apparently connected with 
the vine, but not actually joined to it, it 
will be cut off and destroyed. A remark- 
able statement follows. He tells us that 
though a branch be joined to the vine, be vi- 
talized, be fruit-bearing, it requires cleans- 
ing, and that the heavenly vine-dresser will 
watch over it and perform the necessary 
work. The work is not for destruction, but 
for increased fruit-bearing. The branch 
is not cut off, but is purged and trimmed 
and pruned, until its shape, appearance, 
and strength are such as the gardener 
wills. 

Then the Lord adds, " Now ye are clean 
through the word I have spoken to you ; " as 
much as to say, " Don't misunderstand 
what I have told you. You do not need 
to be cleansed from the core of your being; 
that took place when you by faith accepted 



Remembering Jesus Words. 87 

me as your Master and received the purify- 
ing influences of the Holy Spirit. Yet you 
need cleansing. God will use the knife, 
but it will be to promote your purity and 
to increase your fruit-bearing. " 

God's afflictive providences are the knife 
with which He is cleansing His people 
to-day. He wants us to be more firmly 
united to the vine, to live closer to Jesus, 
to be more constantly in his presence. 
" Abide in me" are the Lord's own words, 
and sorrow and afflictions are parts of the 
process by which the abiding is to be 
attained. Why do bereavements come 
to us? Has God a controversy with us? 
"No," I answer, "emphatically no! " That 
is often said, but it is always wrongly 
said. God has no controversy with His 
people; His controversy with them was 
settled at the cross of Jesus. But He has 
a loving paternal interest in them, a long- 
ing for their advancement in spiritual 
power and in divine knowledge, a desire 
to have them purer and holier; and so He 
sends afflictions upon them. 



88 Remembering Jesus' Words. 

Then, too, He means by this process to 
quicken our love for one another, our 
hearty sympathy, our tenderness, our for- 
bearance, our self-denial, so that we may 
use the mighty engine of our mutual affec- 
tion for the conversion of the world, forc- 
ing it to say in amazement at the spirit 
we exhibit, — a spirit so different from 
the world's selfishness, — " See how these 
Christians love one another." 

And then the last division, — the power 
to be used. It does not come from human 
reasonings or from our natural impulses, 
but from the Spirit of God dwelling in us 
and teaching us to use the affliction for our 
growth. Let us remember these things as 
we sit around the table of our Lord to-day. 
If the Lord Jesus on the very brink of his 
sufferings, — sufferings greater than the 
world ever saw before, greater than the 
world has ever seen since, — if our dear 
Lord, going down into the valley of the 
shadow of death, could for the sake of the 
joy set before him, the grace he should 



Remembering Jesus' Words. 89 

give the world, if he could be cheerful, 
certainly we, in view of his work for us, — 
the emblems of that work are spread before 
us, — in view of his loving words of com- 
fort and encouragement, can be joyful and 
hopeful even while we are undergoing the 
cleansing and feeling the knife. 



XXV. 

THE MEMORY-TIME. 

^^ERTAINLY each one of us wishes 
to possess the greatest amount of 
spiritual comfort and peace and joy. Well, 
one way to obtain these is indicated by the 
Lord's Supper and its key-note, "Remem- 
ber Jesus; " not only remember him at his 
table, but remember him in every place 
throughout the daily life. I am sure it 
would be highly promotive of our spiritual 
growth, if we should set aside a certain 
portion of every day to think over what 
Jesus has done for us ; to think of what we 
were before he found us and gave us life; 
to think of what we now are, of what we 
shall one day be ; and to remember that all 
this is the work of Jesus for us. Let it be 
entirely apart from our time for Bible- 
study, our time for prayer, our time for 



The Memory-Time. 91 

meditation upon God's truth. Let it be 
a memory-time, a time to remember our 
dear Lord. Our love will surely be made 
more glowing by such an exercise; and 
when our love is strong and ardent, then 
comes our obedience, and then the abiding 
of Christ with us, and then our spiritual 
comfort and peace and joy are gained. 



XXVI. 

CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD'S 
PRESENCE. 

/^OD has brought us into a holy famili- 
arity with Himself. We have com- 
munion with Christ; we have fellowship 
with the Father and with the Son. Now, 
this union between God in Christ and the 
believer is always existing, the connec- 
tion, once formed, is never broken ; but all 
believers do not appreciate the fact. Why 
should not all appreciate it; or rather, how 
can all appreciate it ? 

In the fourteenth chapter of John's gos- 
pel we read these words of our Lord : " He 
that hath my commandments and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me ; and he that 
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and 
I will love him and will manifest myself 
unto him." And again: "If a man love 



Consciousness of God's Presence. 93 

me, he will keep my words, and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him 
and make our abode with him." Here is 
the secret. Every Christian loves Jesus 
and Jesus loves every Christian; but the 
manifestation of the Lord's love and all 
the glory and privilege which that love 
confers, depends upon the Christian's con- 
dition. If the love of Jesus is so strong 
in the heart that it controls the will and 
affections, if it has full sway over the 
entire man, then the close connection 
between Christ and the believer will be 
known and felt ; then the fellowship between 
the soul and God will be understood; then 
a mighty power and an unspeakable happi- 
ness will be enjoyed. 

There are obedient Christians and there 
are disobedient Christians. Both classes 
belong to Christ ; but to one Christ is ever 
present, his glory is ever seen, his love is 
ever acknowledged ; while the other knows 
nothing of all this, or knows it only by 
hearsay. God's love and holiness are in 
every child of God, but they lie dormant 



94 Consciousness of God's Presence. 

in some. They admit of gradations and 
degrees, and the New Testament is a con- 
stant urging of them to reach a higher 
grade and a larger degree. You remember 
that Paul commended the Thessalonians, 
not for their faith and love and hope, 
because every Christian possesses these, 
but for their work of faith, their labor of 
love, and their patience of hope, — that is, 
for an energetic faith, for a love that labors 
in the fulness of power, and for a hope so 
strong that it makes the soul calm and 
serene, and lifts it above all the troubles of 
life. 

How shall we gain this; how shall we 
learn to keep Christ's words; how shall 
we grow into the consciousness of the 
presence of our Lord? Let me tell you 
one of the means. When Josiah brought 
about his great reformation and purged the 
land of Judah, it all sprang from a newly- 
discovered Bible. When Luther set in 
motion the great reformation of the six- 
teenth century, it all came from a newly- 
discovered Bible. All the strength of that 



Consciousness of God's Presence. 95 

reformation came from a Bible put into 
the hands of the people, a Bible read, and 
studied, and searched, and prayed over. 
We cannot afford to neglect God's word; 
we cannot afford to be outside of the 
Bible's reach for a single day. Whenever 
we separate ourselves from it, our Chris- 
tian graces wither, our spiritual energy is 
exhausted, our communion with God is 
cut off. 

What is to be done? Surely none needs 
to be told. If when we leave this mount 
of privilege, — and leave it we must, — we 
would be conscious of the presence of our 
God, if we would have the daily manifest- 
ing of Christ to our souls, we will use 
God's word honestly and earnestly. As 
we honor it by our careful and prayerful 
searching, God will honor us, will fill us 
with warmer love for Himself, with more 
ardent zeal in His service; and as we thus 
keep Christ's words, we shall have those 
manifestations of his love and power which 
he is ever ready to give his own. 



XXVII. 

BEING TROUBLED. 

'TPHE question naturally arises in the 
-*■ heart of the believer at the table of 
the Master, "How can I best show my 
gratitude to my Lord?" and the ready 
answer is, "By moulding my life into 
greater conformity to his will." "Well, 
then, how shall I obtain this greater con- 
formity ? What shall I do that my life may 
henceforth be upon a higher plane of Chris- 
tian activity and Christian experience? " 

Let me give you one thought in this 
direction before we separate. When an 
earthly friend tells us, "Don't be troubled 
about this matter," we recognize his words 
as words of sympathy, and we take them 
for what they are worth. They produce 
an effect, they give us comfort; but they 
end there. They do not remove the trou- 



Being Troubled. 97 

ble, nor do they decrease our care and 
anxiety. They are simply the expres- 
sions of a kindly heart which can wish for 
our release from all that distresses us, but 
which can do nothing but wish. When 
Jesus tells us, "Let not your hearts be 
troubled," a new element is introduced. 
It is now not a human exhortation, but a 
divine command. It is full of infinite 
sympathy, but it also contains an order 
from the Infinite God. To let our hearts 
be troubled after He has thus spoken, is 
not a mark of humility, but is a mark of 
want of faith. 

When the disciples were upon the sea 
in the storm, and awoke their sleeping 
Master, he rebuked them. Their act dis- 
played their lack of confidence in him who 
was in the ship with them. Now, Jesus 
is in the ship with each of us all the time, 
and he wants us to have calmness of mind, 
whatever the storm of earthly care and 
anxiety. He does not say, "Don't be so 
much troubled," but he says absolutely, 
7 



98 Being Troubled. 

" Don't be troubled about anything. Don't 
worry over cares of any kind." He will 
take care of everything for us, and will see 
that nothing touches us which can do us 
harm. 

I know of no better way by which 
Christ's people can impress the world — 
and so evangelize the world — than by this 
quietness of spirit, this want of care and 
anxiety at all times. It is not careless- 
ness; it is not thoughtlessness; it is not 
callousness. It is a deliberate and firm 
resting upon Him who has pledged His 
almighty power to sustain us everywhere 
and everywhen. 



XXVIII. 

HOW JESUS IS GLORIFIED. 

TN our Lord's last communications to 
his nearest disciples, he seems to 
have opened all that was in his heart and 
to have spoken to them with greater free- 
dom than he had ever used before. One 
of his remarkable statements is this : " He, 
[that is, the Holy Spirit] shall glorify me, 
for he shall take of mine and shall show it 
unto you." The Holy Spirit should take 
of the things of Christ and reveal them to 
the disciples of Christ, and in this way 
Jesus would be glorified. Our Lord goes 
on: "All things that the Father hath are 
mine; therefore, said I, He shall take of 
mine and shall show them unto you." The 
things of Christ which the Spirit shows to 
us are eternal and divine things, are God's 
things, are the grandest things in the uni- 
verse. Christ is glorified as we receive 
them from the Spirit's hands. 



ioo How Jesus is Glorified. 

At the table of our Lord we see the 
fulfilment of a part of this declaration. In 
these simple elements — elements which 
the world despises because of their sim- 
plicity — the Holy Spirit takes Christ's 
things (and Christ's things are the Father's 
things) and shows them unto us,— not to 
our natural eyes, but to the eyes of our 
understanding, which he has enlightenecj. 
What things does he here show us ? Christ's 
love leading him to give himself for us and 
our salvation coming out of that love. 

What are we to do in return? In his 
first epistle to the Corinthians Paul says 
that in the Lord's Supper we believers 
show forth the Lord's death. This is what 
we are to do. The Holy Spirit shows us 
the things of Christ, and we show forth 
the death of Christ; that is, each of us 
accepts that death for himself and exhibits 
the results of that death gratefully and 
faithfully. This exhibition of our faith 
Christ wants from all of us, and this is all 
he wants. 



XXIX. 

OUR SINFULNESS AND CHRIST'S 
LOVE. 

HPHE thought of the shed blood of 
Christ ought always to bring two 
-other thoughts before our minds. The first 
is the thought of our own sinfulness. No 
matter how exalted may be our position in 
the spiritual life, because of our faithful 
use of the means of exaltation furnished 
by God's grace, no matter how high our 
attainments in sainthood may be, we must 
never forget our native sinfulness. Indeed, 
it is as we grow older, — not in years, for 
sometimes as we increase in years we 
shrink in grace, as we advance in our 
earthly life we stagnate in our spiritual 
life, — as we grow older in the life of faith, 
the life that makes us more and more like 
our dear Lord, that constantly draws us 



102 Our Sinfulness and Christ's Love. 

nearer and nearer to him, — it is as we 
grow in this life that we learn to appreci- 
ate the fact of our utter unworthiness. " I 
abhor myself " is a cry that marks a high 
degree of Christian experience. It does 
not belong to the beginning of the Chris- 
tian course; he is far along that course 
when the saint of the Lord learns how 
thoroughly corrupt his heart is, and that 
in his flesh no good thing can be found. 
It was to provide a way by which our sins 
might be removed from us, that Christ's 
blood was poured out ; and so, one thought 
prominent in our meditations to-day is the 
thought of our sinfulness. 

The other thought is that of Christ's 
love, — the love that came before the pour- 
ing out of his blood, that infinite love 
which is beyond all computation. Do we, 
Christ's people, appreciate that love as we 
ought; do we make Jesus the first in our 
affections; do we turn to Jesus in our 
times of trial to receive from him the 
comfort, the guidance, the support, he is 



Our Sinfulness and Christ's Love. 103 

ready to bestow ? The thought of the death 
to which this love led him will surely 
enkindle our love in response to his; the 
thought of our sins will make us humble 
and grateful; the thought of his love will 
fill us with abundant peace and spiritual 
joy, and so we shall be made perfect before 
God. 



XXX. 

CHRISTIAN BOLDNESS. 

A HOLY boldness in claiming and 
using our privileges in Christ will 
always help our faithfulness. The con- 
verse is equally true: our faithfulness 
will help our boldness. The two act and 
re-act upon each other. In the first epistle 
of John (iii: 21, 22) we read, "Beloved, 
if our hearts condemn us not, then have 
we boldness [I quote from the Revision] 
toward God, and whatsover we ask we 
receive of Him, because we keep His 
commandments and do the things that are 
pleasing in His sight;" that is, if we keep 
God's commandments and do the things 
pleasing to Him, — not a perfect keep- 
ing, not a perfect doing; we can never do 
this while we are in the flesh,- — but if we 
run in the way of God's commandments, if 



Christian Boldness. 105 

we are honestly trying to obey Him, to 
live as becometh saints, then our hearts 
do not condemn us; and when our hearts 
do not condemn us we are bold before 
God. 

I know of no thought more profitable to 
carry away with us than this of the action 
and re-action of these truths. Our bold- 
ness in claiming our sonship and saint- 
ship will help our faithfulness, and our 
faithfulness in our Lord's service willhelp 
our boldness, — the two together forming 
what God would have us be. 

The grace of our Lord is specially repre- 
sented in the holy Supper. It is the 
Lord's Supper, not ours; it is the Lord's 
table, not ours. We are here because he 
has invited us. The emblems before us 
symbolize eternal realities, — the love, the 
sustentation, the strength, the joy, the 
Lord bestows upon His people. His divine 
grace does all. We are to lean upon that 
grace, to magnify that grace; and when- 
ever we are tempted to depend upon 



106 Christian Boldness. 

anything else, to correct the error by 
remembering that God's grace does every- 
thing. The remembrance will not make 
us careless, but will draw us nearer to 
Christ. 

One more thought: on this happy and 
solemn occasion we are joined by the dear 
ones who once sat beside us, but who have 
gone before us to the other world. They 
have not forgotten us. There is no divi- 
sion between us except the little division 
caused by the flesh. There is no great 
gulf fixed between us, but only a little 
space over which their love and our faith 
can reach. There is no such thing as 
death for the sons of God. God is the 
God of the living, not of the dead. The 
Abrahams and Isaacs and Jacobs did not 
die; they could not die. " He that liveth 
and believeth in me shall never die." We 
may not see these departed ones, — we do 
not see them, — but that does not alter the 
fact. Our dear ones are living, are pres- 
ent with us, are now joining with us in 



Christian Boldness, 107 

praising God for His great work of salva- 
tion. It will not be long before we shall 
be with them and see plainly what we now 
see through signs, enjoying to the full the 
knowledge of the divine love and grace 
which we began to know here. 



XXXI. 

IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST. 

""DURIED with Christ in baptism, 
wherein also ye are risen with him 
through the faith of the operation of God." 
Perhaps no other figure can so thoroughly 
present our condition to-day. " Buried 
with Christ " from the former life, "risen 
with Christ " into the new life. It is 
more than a figure; it is a reality; it is 
the identification of the believer with his 
Lord. 

The identification is a complete one; 
we died when Christ died; we rose when 
Christ rose. All that he accomplished by 
his death, we accomplish; all that he 
attained by his resurrection, we attain. 
What means that phrase, "joint-heirs with 
Christ," if this be not so? How can we 
be joint-heirs with him, unless we have 
the same rights that Christ has? What 



Identification with Christ. 109 

means the twenty-fourth psalm, unless we 
enter heaven as our right, because we enter 
in him ? " Lift up your heads, O ye gates, 
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, 
and the King of glory shall come in." 
That will be sung as you and I approach 
the entrance to the blessed abode. It is 
because we are one with Christ that we 
enter into the fulness of joy. There is no 
thought that will give us more strength 
against sin, none that will give us greater 
elevation of soul, none that will more aid 
us in living a consistent life, than this of 
our thorough identification with our Lord. 
It is the best means of growing into his 
likeness, — it is the only means. 

Now, this whole work is the " operation 
of God." There is nothing natural in the 
renewing of man's soul. Faith, the human 
grasp upon the divine work, is necessary; 
but the work is God's work in contradis- 
tinction from all human works. The Lord 
of glory became man, and at every point 
identified himself with our race. We 



no Identification with Christ. 

accept what he did for us, and so identify 
ourselves with God's work. Our simple 
act of faith brings us into relation with the 
operation of God ; our simple faith identi- 
fies us with Christ. 

The Lord's Supper is a grand token of 
this. It is not simply that we eat and 
drink with him. That is included; there 
is this thought of intimate friendship; but 
there is more than this. We sit at our 
Lord's table and we eat and drink him. 
We eat his flesh and we drink his blood; 
and just as the bread and wine we eat 
become part of our bodies, become so 
identified with us and we with them that 
no separation is possible, so is our spirit- 
ual feeding upon Jesus the complete iden- 
tification of our souls with him. The Lord's 
Supper has this as its central thought. 
We see his broken body and shed blood in 
the bread and the wine; we see his death, 
and know that we are buried with him ; 
and having thus died with him, we rise 
with him triumphant over sin. 



Identification with Christ 1 1 1 

We are Christians notwithstanding our 
ill-desert, notwithstanding our wayward- 
ness, notwithstanding our sinfulness; we 
are, through the operation of God received 
by our faith, made one with Christ. In 
him we died to sin; in him we have risen 
to newness of life, — a life in which sin 
has no dominion, a life which sin cannot 
destroy or mar. This life is our present 
possession. Because of our deadness to 
the world and because of our eternal life 
in Christ, we are the children of God and 
the heirs of glory unspeakable. Let us 
hold fast to this truth of our oneness with 
Jesus in his death and in his life. 



XXXII. 

ABIDING IN CHRIST. 

T)OTH the Saviour and the Apostle John 
-*-^ enjoin us to "abide in Christ," and 
the injunction would not have been given, 
were there not a possibility of quitting 
him. It is addressed to Christians, to 
those who are indissolubly joined to 
Christ, and yet it bids these to abide in 
him. No one can carefully collate all the 
passages in which this phrase is used, 
without seeing that this abiding is the 
condition of greatest good to the Chris- 
tian, that all the efflorescence and fruitage 
of the Christian's life depend upon it. 
Now, if we look over the mass of Christ's 
people in the world, we shall soon find 
it necessary to do as the Bible does, — 
divide them into two classes. One of 
them is full of comfort and peace and sus- 



Abiding in Christ. 113 

tentation in the hour of trial; the other 
has none of these things. One is full of 
the joy of the Holy Ghost ; the other 
scarcely knows what the joy of the Holy 
Ghost means. One exhibits all the blessed 
fruits of godly living; the other can hardly 
be distinguished from the world. What 
makes the difference? One is abiding in 
Christ; the other is not. 

What, then, is meant by "abiding in 
Christ "? It is not "believing in Christ," 
for every Christian believes in Christ, 
every Christian trusts in Christ as his 
Saviour. Abiding in Christ must be some- 
thing different from this. I think it is 
surrounding ourselves with Christ. We are 
then in him. It is placing Christ as a 
wall of defence on every side, and build- 
ing the wall so high that we are never 
tempted to look beyond it. We engage 
in our daily business and we feel Christ 
in it all; we look at our domestic and 
social relations, and we see Christ there; 
we think over our plans for our future 



ii4 Abiding in Christ. 

earthly life, and our first thought is the 
Christ there. And, in this conscious 
nearness of our Lord, in this sure know- 
ledge of his constant presence with us, in 
the fuller and fuller appreciation of his 
beauty, his gentleness, his loving interest 
in us and for us, all that we do is done as 
he would have us do, our lives become 
more and more assimilated to his, and 
thus more and more conformed to God's 
will, more and more like God's. We 
abide in him, and so we bring forth much 
fruit. 

But suppose that we have been careless, 
neglectful of our duty, wanderers from his 
side ; how are we to abide in him ? Well, 
we certainly will have to adopt some radi- 
cal measures ; we will have to cut off some 
line of conduct that causes our view of 
Christ to be defective, to break off some 
worldly association that causes Christ's 
presence to be not felt. "The excision 
will hurt." Yes, but what of that? The 
excision is for Christ's sake. Let us bear 



Abiding in Christ. 115 

the pain for Christ's sake. Surely our 
love for him is strong enough for that. 
Let us who have been redeemed by the 
blood of Christ and cleansed by it from 
the power of sin, offer our testimony to 
his truth by such excision, and show a 
godless world the power of the new life 
that is in us. Perhaps, in bearing this 
testimony, we shall find the shortest road 
to the abiding in Christ. 



XXXIII. 

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST 
IN THE SOUL. 

/^OD never intended that His children 
should go through this world with- 
out the knowledge of His divine parentage. 
God never intended that a single child 
should be in doubt regarding his relation 
to his Heavenly Father. The teaching 
that we are never to be sure of our salva- 
tion is not the act of a true faith. We are 
saved not by anything in us, but by the 
love and the power of our blessed Lord. 
Are we not doubting that love and circum- 
scribing that power, when we remain in 
ignorance of our salvation; do we give 
Jesus the honor that is due him? 

One of the "we knows " in the first 
epistle of John is this: "Hereby we know 
that we dwell in him and he in us, because 



Indwelling of Christ in the Soul. 1 1 7 

he hath given us of his Spirit." Every 
child of God should have this testimony. 
Every one of us should say, " I know that 
Jesus dwells in me and that I dwell in him, 
because of his Spirit which actuates my 
life. I know that this motive-power is not 
mine; I know that it is something from 
God. I know that there has been a new 
creation, that a new life has been given 
me, and that all this has come to me as 
the result of Christ's dwelling in me and 
of my dwelling in him." It is not modesty 
that refuses to say this; it is unbelief. 

It is a wonderful thing, this dwelling of 
Christ in the soul and of the soul in Christ ; 
we cannot comprehend it. It is a union 
such as no earthly union can do more than 
shadow. It means a oneness with Christ 
that is marvellous, and yet is a fact. 

At the table of our Lord let this thought 
be our comfort and our strength, imparting 
new devotion and leading us to a happier 
Christian life. 



XXXIV. 

THE EVERLASTING CONSOLA- 
TIONS. 

TN the second chapter of the second 
epistle to the Thessalonians we 
read these words : " Now our Lord Jesus 
Christ himself, and God, even our Father, 
which has loved us and given us everlasting 
consolation and good hope through grace, 
comfort your hearts, and stablish you in 
every good word and work. " God in His 
love for us has granted us everlasting con- 
solations (of which these are the pledges) 
against every form of earthly distress, of 
earthly opposition, of earthly trial. He 
has taken away all fear of the future, and 
He tells us that all is beautiful in our 
heavenly home. He has taken away all 
dread of death, and shows us that death 
is a mere form for us. Because of these 



The Everlasting Consolations, 119 

wonderful gifts, these high privileges which 
we possess as saints of the Lord, he expects 
us to be established in every good word and 
work. 

He has a right to expect this from those 
to whom he has given everlasting consola- 
tions. If we did not have these, if we 
were always trembling before trials, if we 
were always fearing the future, if we were 
always dreading death and all that follows 
death, we should be in no condition to do 
good word or work. But God has freed us 
from all these, and our freedom enables us 
to do good works and to speak good words 
for our Lord. Let us remember that we 
cannot separate our privileges, our respon- 
sibilities, and our duties. 



XXXV. 

THE BELIEVER'S SONSHIR 

/^UR true position before God to-day is 
indicated by the Holy Spirit in these 
words : " Behold, what manner of love the 
Father hath bestowed upon us in that we 
should be called the sons of God." Let us 
accept the declaration in all its fulness. We 
cannot by faith partake of these emblems 
of Christ's death for us, unless we have 
a right thus to accept it. It is because 
we are the sons of God that we are here 
assembled around our Lord's table. We 
are here because we love the Lord Jesus 
Christ our Saviour, because we are united 
to him, the Eternal Son of God. And so 
our presence here is proof positive that we 
have a right to appropriate these wonder- 
ful words to ourselves. We know what 
manner of love the Father has bestowed 



The Believers Sonship. 121 

upon us ; we know that we are the sons of 
God. Let us have this confidence of faith 
and the gratitude by which a confident faith 
is always accompanied, as we partake this 
afternoon of the emblems of the broken 
body and shed blood of our once crucified 
but now exalted Saviour. 



XXXVI. 

THE BELIEVER'S SAINTSHIP. 

TN the tenth chapter of the epistle to 
the Hebrews we read, "By the 
which will we are sanctified by the offer- 
ing of the body of Jesus Christ, once for 
all." The thought is a fitting one as we 
sit together this afternoon, — the thought 
that through the will of God and the offer- 
ing of the body of Jesus Christ, once for 
all (of which offering the emblems before 
us are reminders), we are sanctified^ are 
made saints. Let us grasp the fulness of 
that declaration of our God. We do not 
do this. We make excuses to ourselves; 
we shrink from it. "We saints!" we cry, 
" we* holy ones! Oh, no. There may be 
saints on earth. There were Saint Paul 
and Saint John, and Saint Peter and Saint 
James; but we cannot put ourselves by 
their side. We cannot be saints. " 



The Believer 's Saintship. 123 

Brethren, such language is the language 
of unbelief. We are not to look in upon 
ourselves. No wonder we are sickened at 
what we find there. We are to look away 
from ourselves, to look at what God's word 
tells us, to see what seals of saintship it 
points out. It is the "will of God;" it 
is "through the offering of the body of 
Christ." These are the seals that secure 
our saintship. 

The holy Supper is one of the pledges 
of this. We did not invent it; it is not 
an invention of the Church. The Church 
is only a company of believers, and has no 
right to invent anything. It is God's 
ordinance; it is God's pledge. We receive 
this pledge in humble faith, — not looking 
at ourselves, but looking at Jesus, and at 
Jesus only; and thus we emphasize the 
fact that unworthy as we are, we are the 
saints of the Lord. 

The reason that so many do not compre- 
hend this, and therefore do not enjoy the 
high delights and blessed privileges of the 



124 The Believer's Saintship. 

position is this, — they look in upon them- 
selves. How many of us were taught to 
do this ! how many of us were taught to 
hold firmly to the doctrine of self-examina- 
tion, — something never demanded by God 
of a Christian! It is true that Paul wrote 
to the drunken Corinthians who had turned 
the Lord's Supper into a scene of revelry 
to examine themselves; but it was their 
outward lives they were to look at, to see 
how ignorant they were, how carnal they 
were, how far from all spirituality they 
were. All the examination taught in the 
Bible is God's examination. "Search me, 
O God, and know my heart; try me and 
know my thoughts." God must do the 
work. We do not, we cannot know our- 
selves. All self-searching will either puff 
us up or cast us down. We are to look 
not at ourselves but at Jesus; to look at 
Jesus all the time, and as we look at him, 
we know that we are sanctified, that we are 
saints. 

They who know this have a firm foun- 



The Believer 's Saintsbip. 125 

dation on which to build. They who feel 
their sanctification in Jesus are those who 
abhor sin, who shrink from its pollution, 
and who dread its power. They resist 
temptation and gain the victory over the 
world. Let us, as we partake of these 
emblems, remember that we are the saints 
of God, sanctified by the will of God and 
by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ 
once for all. 



XXXVII. 

THE BELIEVER'S GLORY. 

TN the remarkable prayer that followed 
the last discourse of our Lord with 
his disciples, the intercessory prayer which 
was the declaring and expounding of his 
great work for man, in that remarkable 
prayer Jesus said to his Father with regard 
to all who should believe on him — and that 
includes you and me, — "The glory which 
Thou gavest me, I have given them. ,, It 
will take all eternity to get to the bottom 
of that truth, and yet we may begin to 
appreciate it here. The glory which God 
the Father gave God the Son when he was 
upon earth, that glory has the Son of God 
given us, — not will give at some future 
time, but has given now. 

What an estimate Christ puts upon our 
salvation! and how far short do we our- 
selves come of that estimate ! If we could 



The Believer's Glory. 127 

only reach the thought that is in Christ's 
mind regarding it, we should be lifted 
above every form of earthly trial, every 
form of earthly temptation. All of us 
here this afternoon have this glory, — the 
glory that God gave Christ. God recog- 
nizes us as possessors of that glory, and the 
angels recognize us. What can be the 
meaning of the Scripture that says that 
our names are written in the heavenly 
record known as the Lamb's Book of Life, 
unless it be that we belong to heaven's 
nobility, that we are numbered with the 
princes of God ? Let us, each for himself, ap- 
propriate this glory; let us, each for himself, 
accept this grand truth ; let us, each for him- 
self, live up to its standard, live accord- 
ing to the requirements of our nobility in 
Christ. This memorial Supper tells us that 
we are united by faith to God forever, that 
as one with Christ, we are the sons of God. 
Let our lives speak for our God and Father 
by our contempt for earth's allurements and 
by our communings with Jesus always. 



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